The Bath House
by Apelles
Summary: Tired of his lonieness and pain from Sakura's 'empty eyes', Syaoran goes to a bath house late at night to wash out his emotions, and get clean.


Disclaimer: Come on people. If I did own any of this, why would I be writing here, of all places? 

Author's note: Not meant to be something really big. Written mostly on a whim. Please review.

* * *

The building was very run down. There was only one light outside of the entrance, giving off an eerie yellow glow that poured onto the broken sidewalk. The building looked cold and uninviting, tucked deep in the back of an alley. It was made of concert, like everything else in this world, and had almost nothing else other than a door and a sign that said, "Bath-house. Open 7 till 9." 

Syaoran looked his wrist. He had recently brought a small digital wristwatch. Though he did not really know exactly how the wristwatch really worked, it was enormously useful. The watch was able to do numerous things, none of which he really needed, but he guessed that maybe someday he might be able to use them.

At the moment, all the watch showed was the time. It blinked 11:00 in neo green. Syaoran walked up to the door and walked in.

There was only one elderly woman sitting behind a desk. She was absentmindedly flipping the pages of a magazine, her other hand toying with a lit cigarette.

"We're closed. Get out." she said without looking up.

Syaoran walked up to the desk and paused, wondering why he was doing this. He looked at the woman once more, this time noticing a small name tag on her shirt. _'Mrs. Hopewell.'_ he read.

* * *

Mrs. Hopewell noticed that shadow over her page with deep bitterness. Inside, she cursed at herself for leaving the door open for so long. Her daughter Lily should have been back by now, but, as it was with many things theses days, she must have been delayed. Mrs. Hopewell prayed that Lily would soon walk in, and she could get rid of this stranger quickly. 

She hated strangers. She hated when people came in after hours, especially in this neighborhood, for it normally meant they weren't here for business. She put the cigarette in her mouth and took a deep breath, than lifted her head for the first time and blew out into the stranger's face. With any luck, she could scare him away.

"Did ya not understand me, sonny?" she sneered, "I said, we're closed. Get out."

"I'm sorry," a soft, almost child like voice replied.

In front of her stood a young boy- hardly older than her daughter. She generally knew the people in the neighborhood, at least, the ones that bothered to come to the bathhouse, so when an unrecognizable face stared back at her, an alarm sounded in her mind. She twisted slightly in her seat, yet did not let her tired eyes sway from the boy's face.

"What do ya want?" she snapped. "We ain't got anything for you to steal."

The boy shook his head, a moment that made his eyes fade in and out of focus. "I…I just want a bath."

Mrs. Hopewell narrowed her eyes at the stranger, wondering what he was trying to pull. His answer did surprise her greatly, but somehow only made her more uncomfortable.

"Please," the boy's voice broke through her thoughts. "I don't want to cause any trouble."

She did not reply, instead looking him over with the eye of a hawk, as if his body would give away what he truly had in mind.

The clothes the boy wore were interesting. He had on loose fitting pants and shirt, torn and ragged and ugly. They were dotted with blood and sweat, dirt and grime. On his feet were boots, scuffed up but in a slightly better condition than his pants. He reeked of sweat.

His hands weren't stuffed in his pocket but hung limp, like dead weights, on his arms at the sides of his body. They were rough and callused, she could see clearly, and bled. Dirt had found a home around and under his fingernails, along with dried blood. As her eyes traveled up to his face, she saw that his forearms were covered in small and large scratches, unattended for, and most likely, as dirty as the rest of him.

The boy's face was by far the most interesting thing about him. He looked horrible, like some zombie from the old vids. Bloodshot eyes with dark circles and pale, sick looking skin. She was sure he was handsome when he was healthy. He had high cheekbones, brilliant amber eyes, and brown hair, which probably would look shinny and nice if washed. At the moment, however, Mrs. Hopewell could only imagine what he looked like clean, so dirty was he.

In all, the boy did not look like much of a killer. In fact, he look quiet sad and pathetic. His shoulders slouched, his head hung low, and he overall looked exhausted. One gust of wind, and she was sure he would topple over.

"I just can't go home yet," his soft voice choked, "I-I just can't…"

And he crumbled.

The boy's sad, intense eyes gave way. His whole body seemed to give up and he crashed to the ground in front of the desk, while Mrs. Hopewell jumped away from him. She looked on as his body shook with whatever emotion was erupting inside of him. He looked so sad, so small, so…alone.

Perhaps it was pity, or sleep depravation, or even motherly-nature, that made her do what she did. She did not know. What she did concluded was that the boy was an absolute mess, and the least she could do was give him what he wanted, than get him as fast as she could out the door.

"Take a bath." she said. "I'll give you a towel."

The boy looked up, his face clearly showing his gratitude.

Mrs. Hopewell avoided his eyes. She did not like them. They showed too much pain, too much for her. And, she had a feeling, too much for him.

She led the boy to the back of the bathhouse, where there were individual rooms for guests who wanted privacy instead of sharing the large room along with the public. The room had no door, in its place was a curtain, but it did have a large bathtub and numerous of soaps.

The boy nodded when he saw the room and stepped inside, taking off his boots.

Mrs. Hopewell looked again at the boy's clothes. "What do you do?" she asked, careful to avoid his eyes.

The boy glanced down at his shirt and gave it a tug. "Construction work." he answered.

Ah, that explained the shape of his clothes, Mrs. Hopewell thought.

"Why?" she asked, wrinkling up her nose. Surely this boy was smart. He talked very politely to her and seemed educated.

He blinked, taken back. "For her." he said simply, in a tone that ended any more questions.Mrs. Hopewell looked at him once more.

He did not seem like the boy who should be working at such a young age. He seemed as though he should be in school, happy and carefree. He was obviously not cut out for the strenuous lifting and back breaking work the construction jobs this town required.

_'Such an odd boy,'_ Mrs. Hopewell thought. '_He knows what true pain is. It seems all children do nowadays_.'

She quickly left, returning to the desk in the front of the building. She could hear the sound of splashing water bouncing off the tiled floors and walls. She did not know how long he would be in there, yet, she realized, she did not mind. He was a mess, in possible worse shape than she herself was, and for some reason, she wanted to help him. At least, for tonight.

_'I wonder who he is,'_ she thought, then turned to her magazine, her head whirling with thoughts.

* * *

Syaoran looked around the small room. It was in the shape of a rectangle. The width of the room was not much, in fact if he stood in the middle of the room, his fingertips could just barely reach the walls, but it was very long. A large bathtub took up literally half of the room. The walls were covered with full length mirrors and there were only two pieces of furniture in the room, a chair and a sink. 

Syaoran pulled his shirt above his head and took off his pants, stripping down to his bare skin. He had already filled the tub to the brim with hot water and lots of bubbles. Syaoran stepped up on the step to the tub yet froze.

His reflection stared back at him. It took a moment before Syaoran realized it truly was him. He had never been a vain person, for a mirror in the desert was somewhat useless, and at most the only time he ever cared the way he looked was for Sakura.

Yet the person who stared back at him from the mirror was new and frightening.

Syaoran had red eyes from little sleep for the past few days, along with dark lines underneath them. His hair was a complete disaster, beyond its normal untidiness. It poked out in different directions and stuck up in the back. He ran his fingers through it, attempting to maintain order, yet it paid him no heed. Syaoran let out a sigh and figured it was best to try and fix it after he had the bath.

The most different thing about him was his body. He had always been somewhat slim and muscular, from walking around and running with Sakura. The past few days, though, had been quiet difficult indeed. He had been eating and sleeping less, and working much more with the construction jobs he and Kurogane had taken on. Along with the added stress of finding a feather and the pure misery he felt when he thought of the consequences, it put a strain on his body and mind.

The product of these past few days? He was ripped.

His abdominal muscles had packed themselves into hard squares of eight. His chest was more defined, along with his shoulders, which was no longer poking out bones, but different muscles flexed under his skin. Syaoran turned his body to the side; he was still slim, yet now he could clearly see the outlines of all his new muscles from his stomach, his chest, and his back.

Syaoran shook his head and stepped into the tub. The tub was four feet long, four feet wide. The water came all the way up to his chest. '_This is deep,_' Syaoran thought.

Hot water touched his skin and massaged it gently as Syaoran splashed himself. He swam to one side of the tub and put his back against the wall. He lifted his feet off the bottom of the tub to the wall, and bent his knees, than shot forward, pushing off the wall with his feet to the other side of the tub. He repeated the process four more times for no reason other than his enjoyment.

Steam still rose from the water, and small beads of sweat gathered above his eyes. Syaoran swam to where all the soaps and lotions where. He picked up on pink bottle and flipped open the cap, taking a deep breath. He thought for a moment, than put the bottle back down and picked up another one and smelled it. He put it down, than picked up another one.

By the time he finished with the soaps and lotions, he had put on five of them, emptied two of them into the bathwater, and left the rest untouched. The water was now a blue-green color and smelled of tea and mint.

Syaoran ran his hands across his chest, pressing down on certain points on his shoulders. He could feel a knot underneath his skin and pressed his thumb and forefinger into it. Small pain traveled up from his shoulder to his neck, to his head. Within moments, the pain, and the stress, was all gone. He did this a few more times than stopped.

While his father was still alive, he taught Syaoran different pressure points on the body, which he had read from a history book on ancient medicines. This knowledge came in great handy after Syaoran had been in a fights searching for Sakura's feathers. The knots he felt under his skin were really caused by stress, and could be removed fairly easily.

Syaoran moved on to his legs. He reached behind his ankles and massaged his calf muscle, than turned to the other leg. After he had thoroughly done both legs and feet, he laid his head back and breathed in deeply. The only sound in the room was the slush, slush of the water against his body.

Though the room was small, it was a beautiful heaven. Gone was the search for Sakura's feather, gone was the pain, the utter torment of her empty eyes whenever she looked at him, gone was every deed, every sin, everything he had every done, vanished in the splashes of the water. All the anger and grief he felt dripped off his body, along with the sweat and blood. He could not care less. _'Let it all wash off me.'_ he thought, '_Let nothing remain.'_

Syaoran closed his eyes and ducked his head under water. He gently rubbed his fingers into his scalp, not really caring if he did or did not wash his hair. When he came back up, his hair clung to head, wet and defeated at last. In the end, he did shampoo it.

At long last, he was pleased with himself. His skin by his nails and hands were slightly pink from how furiously he scrubbed them, while the skin on the rest of his body was wonderfully smooth, and clean. He felt relaxed, refreshed, and sleep tugged at his eyes for the first time today.

As he stepped out of the tub and dried himself off with the fluffy towels, it was as though a weight had been lifted off his chest and he could breathe once more. His body, and mind, had taken the vacation it needed for the regular world. The knots in his body were gone. He smelled much nicer than earlier.

Syaoran glanced around the room and noticed something strange. His dirty, smelly, blood stained clothes had vanished, replaced instead with a folded pile of something else. Syaoran walked to the pile and picked it up. There was a simple white T-shirt, pants, and a jacket. Seeing his old clothes no where, and really too tired to care about much, he quickly put them on, grabbed his boots from outside the door, and walked out.

* * *

Mrs. Hopewell heard the boy leave the room and walk down the hall. A few moments later, he came into the room, dressed in the clothes she had left him. 

The boy walked up to the desk and paused.

Mrs. Hopewell took another cigarette from her pocket and a box of matches.

"You ain't getting your rags back." she said, sticking a match on the side of the box, than lifting it to her cigarette. "I already threw them out."

The boy looked down. "I don't want to take any charity, Mrs. You have already done enough by letting me stay here." he said.

"hm." Mrs. Hopewell took a deep breath. "That is not charity. I don't know why, but I can't let you go out looking like a disgrace."

The boy looked up and once again, Mrs. Hopewell grimaced. She accidentally saw those sad, lonely brown eyes of his. "Thank you." he said. He turned on his heels and walked toward the door.

"Who is she?"

The boy stopped, his hand inches away from the doorknob. Mrs. Hopewell saw his chest fill with air, and he looked over his shoulder at her.

"She is the most important person in all the worlds to me." he said, and walked out the door.

Mrs. Hopewell watched the door close slowly. His choices of words briefly rang in her head, but she soon shrugged it off.

"Mom?" the voice of her daughter Lily called. "Who was that?"

Mrs. Hopewell looked at her daughter.

"That," she paused. What was she supposed to say? Though his visit had been under strange circumstances, she had a feeling she would never forget that boy. His eyes, full of pain and loneness were still vivid in her mind, the way he fell to the ground, his body succumbing to an inner force yet somehow still graceful. In those few moments, she felt changed.

_That's it,_ she thought._ I finally know who he is. He is someone who will change the world. His eyes show that he knows the meaning of pain, yet he is strong. Stronger than he knows. Stronger than me. He is protecting someone, and that is the greatest of all strengths._

"…that," she said again, "is someone who will change lives."

Her daughter raised her eyebrows in confusion. After a moment of looking at her mother, she yawned. Whoever that was, it did not matter at the moment. "Well, I'm going to bed." she walked up to the desk and gave Mrs. Hopewell a large hug. "You should, too."

"hm." was her response.

Mrs. Hopewell never saw the boy again. A few day's later, there was a strange storm that went on for one full day. The news vids called it 'a strange atmospheric disturbance'. For some reason, it made her think of the boy.

In years to come, when it was late at night, Mrs. Hopewell would find herself staring at the door, wondering who would come in. The boy never showed up again. She searched around the neighborhood for weeks afterwards, but it was as though he did not exist. Though she gave up looking for him long ago, she would still find herself thinking, _'I wonder if he ever changed the world?'_

* * *

Author's note: …yeah.Really stupid, pretty dang pointless, but what-the-hey, I liked writing it. If you agree, or even if you don't, please review. 


End file.
